An early work of the writer, this has a flavour of the literature of Bengal where the author originates from, with the first part reminiscent of the works of many great authors of the land in its style, language and even in the humour, the imagery and the motivation of the characters, the conflicts. Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya, Bimal Mitra, one is reminded of a whole sea of literature behind this that is the heritage of a rich culture, as one reads the first part. The second part is reminiscent of One Hundred Years Of Solitude in its silent ominous extinction of the people, and the nameless, faceless Oilmen and the power that employes them, with a little flavour also of Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
Named Circle of Reason, it is no circle of any kind at all, even in the broadest sense possible, but really a curve fitted to three hillocks of events across planes and valleys of thought and people and cultures across two huge continents, events that illustrate the philosophy and concepts for the writer. The journey depicted is hardly a circle, it is not even closed at any level be it conceptual or geographical - he travels from Reason to Passion to Death while moving from rural and capital scenario of Bengal to northern shores of Indian Ocean at Al Ghezhira to coasts of Africa, ending across from Gibraltar after the last episode at an Algiers small town.
The first part goes on about phrenology, and one is puzzled - isn't that the theory that was turned into a basis of a huge genocide less than a century ago? Then as it goes on one cannot help but begin to chuckle inward, and much of the first part stays at that level of beginning to perceive the characters and the philosophies and motives while the chuckling continues sporadically, never rising to a laughter but always bringing comfort. One begins to understand that it had to be phrenology, since Bose is a follower of Reason and fan of Pasteur and hence could hardly go with a normal human face reading that most people do subconsciously, much less the more evolved palmistry or astrology that the education he had made him deprecating or downright denouncing of, and phrenology provides a semblance of reason being pseudo scientific. It does not stop one chuckling, though.
As usual the author provides a great deal of information across time and borders of geography, with the not so widely known connection between today's computers and the evolution thereof, and the connection with ancient weavers of India and their craft, expertise, art of creation of finest weaves, cotton and silk both. It is a wonder, the connection of reason with creation of art, art that is not merely bought for ridiculously high price to hang or lie about the house just to score against someone or show off but is a direct use and pleasure and wonder for millions for millennia.
The connection has always been there, of course, or there would be no progress or evolution of human history in either field, physical need being supreme and reason merely a nuisance taking time away from needs for useless philosophising - but now the connection is often unperceived and an artificial division of the two is seen wherein often people feel justified in claiming their education was of no use whatsoever, that is, unless they are in medical or legal fields professionally in US, making money far more than minting would enable them. (In other countries and cultures of course no such disconnection or uselessness is claimed as far as education goes, and one wonders if it is merely a case of ingratitude for the free education with opportunity for all that brings such attitudes into fashion.)
But progress is never unopposed and nor is reason or higher faculties of humanity, and here too there is the landlord (literally that is the meaning of his name as well, in another bit of humour) who is more about political power and cares for progress or education only in so much as it serves his purpose. In a conflict reason literally explodes killing all but the young new expert of weaving forced to flee across the land and ocean to another country in search of a safe life.
This, the Lalpukur revolution that is basically benefic, yet ending up in tragedy, is perhaps an eternal tale where good motives do not succeed without power behind them - and when power comes in there has to be care about its taking over and burying reason and truth trampled underfoot, which can happen with power on reason's side just as well as opposite.
The second part, passion, takes one to Al Ghazeira, somewhere on the north shore of what is named Arabian Sea but really is one of the two northern ends of Indian Ocean - the other being just as named Bay of Bengal but the two really being similar in size and practically mirror images for all that.
Here one sees humanity from many parts of world arriving in search of a livelihood, living together and adjusting to the land and one another, in harmony until the nameless and ominous Oilmen finally are successful in taking over - not without a gunning down and wiping out of a whole populace wrongly - perhaps deliberately - labeled suitably for the purpose as troublemakers, revolutionaries, whatever.
In reality there was a small, peaceful revolution, tremendous in impact on thought and behaviour but with no violence, on the contrary, in the making before the ambush and the wipeout. The weaver had thought during being trapped under a huge collapsed building, and come out and begun to speak what he thought; and as strange as it seems to the reader if not understood those listening to him did understand perfectly, and begun to organise around his words, his now nonstop weaving. (There is a bit of allegory here, with Gandhi's spinning of a century ago made a crucial factor of his entirely too real revolution in defeating a wealthy and powerful empire into walking out albeit after much loot over the centuries they ruled, which stays unaccounted for including the jewels exhibited in the tower of London.) The people thus able to see his point organise their society with balanced and perfectly accounted books replacing money transactions within the neighbourhood, much like a bank and co-operative organising the social structure akin to a family's, with the effect that the people's energies are freed to achieve more and the money is saved for everyone to be able to do more.
And all this flowering of a neighbourhood to a better life is destroyed while still in the bud by a misguided attempt of an erstwhile information trader who is as overwhelmed by the happening as others, only unable to give up his older trade and ideas, and thus is not only caught and brought to death (with his own employee profiting by informing on him and inheriting his whole property after his death against his will, too) but jeopardises the whole movement, every innocent one out for an outing for shopping, and much killing in the process. The weaver is saved ironically by the mother figure who has not been enamoured of his talk, of the money-and-germs connection, into giving up her savings for accounting into a book - the accounts are entirely honestly and meticulously kept, this is not communism - and uses them to hire space on a boat to take them away to safety.
The third named death is in Algeria after a harrowing travel across the Indian Ocean's northern ports along Africa and then into Mediterraenean, with a glowing description of sand dunes of the border of Sahara where the story takes one. Here the confrontation is finally between dry theoretic reason attempting to destroy all heritage of millennia and unscroupulously clawing for power - since reason can always be employed to achieve justification of all if other bases of mind and heart and more are let go or destroyed - on one hand, and a humanitarian ideal tempering and finally rebelling against this dry movement of reason on the other. The humanitarian ideal wins, even in death, and frees the living to proceed to live with hope, looking north to another continent or west to another ocean, or back to home.
One could wish the writer would overcome his temptation for the slightly or more than slightly disgusting details of life's necessities and realities - what sharks are gathering around a small ship for, for instance, so an accidental unfortunate falling out of an unfortunate man results in others helplessly watching him eaten alive even as he pleads for help - but if one reads this writer one comes to expect some such details of one nature or another. In later works the scatological, prevalent here a la British taste in humour, gives way to equally shoddy details of what is supposed to be titillating, and it begins to seem as if it is a concession he makes on demand of the publisher and prodding by his editors just to shut them up, since everyone is afraid lack of such concessions might result in lesser profits.
It is interesting in the final part to have a merest whiff of history of Algeria, whetting one's curiosity and appetite for more, and to see one beleaguered ex-colonial now free culture make concessions to another, in humanitarian terms.
These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes